[CentOS] CentOS 3.8 Kernel Update with NVIDIA Video Card

[Alfred von Campe]

On Oct 23, 2006, at 8:11, Bisbal, Prentice wrote:

> You don't need to reinstall the lated NVIDIA driver every time you
> update your kernel. In fact, this will cause problems if you need to
> revert back to your old kernel. You just need to install a new kernel
> module compiled for that version of your kernel.

I didn't know that.  I thought the kernel module *IS* the driver.  I  
guess there is more to it than that.

> If you install the
> entire driver package, you will be installing new versions of all the
> related libraries, too. Then if you revert to the earlier kernel, that
> kernel module be an earlier version that doesn't match the version of
> the newer libraries, and you'll have a similar problem. Then to fix  
> this
> one, you'll have to install the earlier kernel sources to recompile  
> the
> kernel module for that kernel... And so on, and so on...

OK, this makes sense to me.

> If you might revert, it's better
> to learn how to install just the kernel module. I forget the exact
> syntax, but if you do 'man nvidia-installer', all the details are  
> there.

Reading the man page, it appears that I need the -k option.  I  
recently used yum to bring my system up-to-date, and yum installed  
the 2.6.9-42.0.3.EL kernel (which is not yet running, as I haven't  
rebooted).  However, when I try to use the nvidia-installer and  
specify the non-running kernel, I get the following error:

# nvidia-installer -i
Welcome to the NVIDIA Software Installer for Unix/Linux
The currently installed driver is: 'NVIDIA Accelerated Graphics  
Driver for Linux-x86' (version: 1.0-8774).
# nvidia-installer -k 2.6.9-42.0.3.EL --ui=none
Welcome to the NVIDIA Software Installer for Unix/Linux

ERROR: No package found for installation.  Please run this utility  
with the '--help' option for usage
        information.

ERROR: Installation has failed.  Please see the file '/var/log/nvidia- 
installer.log' for details.  You may find
        suggestions on fixing installation problems in the README  
available on the Linux driver download page at
        www.nvidia.com.

> Even better, HP supplies the nvidia drivers as RPMS. These RPMS are  
> for
> RHEL, and include a script /etc/init.d/nvconfig. At startup, this  
> script
> checks to make sure that the current kernel has an nvidia module.  
> If it
> doesn't find one, it installs just the kernel module, no fuss no muss.
> The HP RPMS are just the nvidia drivers repackaged into RPM form. I
> recommend either using those RPMs, or at least extracting the
> /etc/init.d/nvconfig script from the RPM and be done with it. That's
> what I did.

And where can I get these RPMs?

Alfred